Banco Popular de Puerto Rico

According to the Treasury Department, employers have added some 4.5 million workers since the HIRE Act — which lets employers off the hook from 6.2% Social Security taxes if they hire people who have been unemployed for at least 60 days — was implemented in March.

First, Towers Perrin and Watson Wyatt walked off into the sunset, becoming Towers Watson. Now, there’s the news that Aon and Hewitt are becoming a mash-up as well, to be named Aon Hewitt.

I don’t know about you, but all of these studies that show how disengaged people are in their jobs is making me a little depressed.

Clearly, employees love Twitter and Facebook — stats from both social media sites show the number of registered users is growing by the thousands every month. And, employees say they want more benefits communication.

For any employers leaning toward letting workers shop for health coverage in state-run exchanges come 2014, there’s encouraging news from a recent survey from Extend Health.

It’s gotta be tough to lead a major health insurance carrier (except for the high salary, of course). Insurance companies generally are vilified by the mainstream press, disliked by consumers and now there’s news that employers don’t like them much either.

When I first announced the 2010 Benny Awards in March, I said that winners would be notified by July 1. However, I have good news and bad news.

There are plenty of HR/benefits certifications out there — pros probably could spend the equivalent of another full-time job trying to attain them all.

I’d say that in general, most people can agree in clear, black and white terms on which types of dishonesty are okay and not okay. Lying to protect a loved one’s feelings — okay.

Since I doubt I’m in any danger of losing any friends at Wellpoint, I’ll go ahead and call a spade a gardening tool and call their latest survey total nonsense — for the most part, at least.